


Said I'll Be Fine/So Just Let Me Be

by Flames_and_Jade



Series: Only One For Me - Peterick OTP Prompts Repository [13]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Best Friends, Encouragement, Epic Friendship, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, Mental Health Issues, References to Depression, Self-Esteem Issues, best buy incident, but there's such a light at the end of the tunnel, hopefully understated romance, it's actually kinda cheerful in an Emo Way, mostly cannon-compliant, not actually depressing I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 06:19:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12551060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flames_and_Jade/pseuds/Flames_and_Jade
Summary: Pete isn't as broken as he thinks. Patrick isn't as shy as he appears.They're both the bravest people they know.ORAngsty, wordy, Emo 2nd person POV introspection.





	Said I'll Be Fine/So Just Let Me Be

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So this little bit of weirdness just GRABBED me last night as I was brushing my teeth. It's unbeta'd because it was one of those things that just screamed *POST ME DAMMIT* so...I'm sorry. More in the notes at the end, but thank you for clicking, and I'd just love it so much if you'd tell me what you think <3 It's technically set after FUTCT...but I think it could really work anywhere. 
> 
> WARNING for descriptions of the aftermath of a suicide attempt, panic attacks, struggles with low self-esteem and depression. If any of that would put you in a bad place, please click away with my love.

 

 

~Pete~

 

No matter what people say, no matter what _he_ says sometimes, you know the truth.

 

He’s not as broken as he thinks.  


 

Oh, that’s not to belittle what he has to live through. You know how bad it gets in his head, you--probably best of all--understand the blackness of his fears and how they blot out the light of anything else in the world, an eclipse of the mind. No, you say that because you know the _depth_ and _breadth_ and _length_ of his soul, you know the utter magnitude of who he is...and that’s why you’ve never let him fall. You know how much _more_ he is, you know how much more is lurking under the surface.

 

The surface...that’s all he wants most people to see. It’s an odd dichotomy that he makes his exterior so gaudy, so flashy and so attention-getting in an utterly desperate bid for anonymity. It’s an all-or-nothing gamble that nobody will see past the eyeliner and tight shirts, that the no-holds-barred bare-it-all ask-me-anything openness will shroud the one thing he doesn’t want to talk about, that the dubious fashion choices and the bright smiles and loud laughs will be enough smoke-and-mirrors to distract the world from what lurks just beneath. You’re intensely familiar with the game, the charade, the magic show; you know when to play along--let the cameras capture the blindingly edgy, tumultuous whirlwind that is Pete Wentz.

 

But you also know when all that fades, when the makeup is washed off and the cameras have been turned onto their next victim, when the music ends and the sun sets...the surface fades away, it melts like the first snow of the season on pavement that’s still just warm enough. The surface becomes the skin that’s shed, bursting off and splitting along the seams until something raw and not-quite-battle-ready emerges.

 

You’ve seen it all--you’re the one who found him in that parking lot, after all. Just a terrifyingly-empty bottle of pills, and echo of _I’m so sorry_ in your ears and the flutter of his pulse under your fingers. You held it together while he was still in the hospital; you smiled and squeezed his hand, you consoled a hysterical Dale Wentz, you ran interference with the label and the extended staff. But when he got back to his house, looking small and deflated...oh you let it all out. Your famous temper had exploded like a supernova--a reckless, raging, ragged hurricane that had battered his fragile shell. You understood afterwards why it’s called _bone china_ , it’s because it’s beautiful and delicate and perfect...until it shatters. The most beautiful things are also the most breakable, you realize as you stand there, breathless and red-faced, blood surging through your veins like a flash flood, temper receding like the polar ice. _That_ is the first time you accept how truly broken he is, how deep the cracks go, how far down it is to the bottom of the spiral.

 

You hold him as he cries, as he tells you the real reason he did it, how afraid he is and how worthless he feels. You curl up around him on the narrow twin bed even as he curls around you, sympathetic wavelengths, yin and yang, balance and counterbalance. You sing to him, low and soothing, for hours. He doesn’t sleep for the first two or three, but his breathing evens out and tears stop spreading across your shirt, and that’s payment enough to keep going. You sing him Frank Sinatra and Elvis Costello and Ray Charles until your throat burns and your lungs ache. All that matters is the way his hands relax from their death grip on you, the way his body slackens, muscles lengthening and releasing, breaths becoming deep and regular, a near-substitute to a 4/4 metronome. You run your hand gently through his greasy hair, breathe in the familiar scent of him...and promise yourself you’ll watch more closely, you’ll be his light when he’s trapped in the dark.

 

But as you do that...as you start to pay attention,  you start to see things. Not just the reality behind the smoke and mirrors, no, you see _him_ . You see the honesty that permeates his being, you see the genuine compassion in his eyes when he hugs a fan who just broke up with their boyfriend or girlfriend, you see the dedication in the set of his shoulders as he considers a bassline for a new song. He is _huge_ \--not in stature or in any way that could be measured--but in the intangible depths of his heart, the canyons of _authenticity_ that are Pete Wentz.

 

As the hours become days, the days become weeks. Your toothbrush starts to look normal next to his, like it’s always belonged there. His laundry becomes more and more tangled with yours, not that he does any of it...but soon your hoodies are intermingling with his, your hats hanging next to his in the hallway, your shoes a riotous explosion of clashing colors in the entry closet. Somewhere along the way you accept that this is where you belong, and one day the twin bed has become a double, and it just seems normal. It’s not some weird savior complex, you don’t think that he is so broken that he has to have you, that you’re the only thing keeping him together. It’s that you’ve realized his smiles are the best thing in your world, the way he opens his eyes after clawing his way up from graveyard in his mind and they’re clear and _happy_.

 

So you are just _there_ . He knows he can come to you now when he’s afraid, when he’s spiraling downwards and _knows_ that he’s tumbling faster than he will be able to slow, momentum carrying him down in a tumult just shy of terminal velocity. When he does come to you...it’s not like you have any magic cure, no fairy dust or enchanted words to make it all go away. But you can listen, you can calmly refute all the idiotic and totally _false_ lies that Pete is telling himself and haltingly encourage him. You can let him burrow into your side as you sit working in GarageBand, or crawl in next to you in your bunk, or lay his head on your lap as you’re watching TV. Sometimes just being nearby is enough for him, enough for him to pull himself back from the edge of blackness.

 

All those things Pete does because he’s really begging for you to look below the surface, to care enough about him to see. He needs you to push and pull it out of him. To see when the eyeliner is just a bit _too_ thick, when the smiles are just _too_ bright, when the cheerfulness is just _too_ bulletproof. He needs you to drag him behind a stack of amps and pull him into a hug he didn’t ask for, because you know he’s about ready to shake out of his skin, his bones rattling like so much china in a Pete-shaped box. You learn to see the little things--the music he blares into his headphones, the amount of time it takes for him to put on his clothes in the morning, the amount of times he frustrates Dirty to the breaking point and beyond. You learn to know when it’s time to sit him down and pull it out of him inch by inch, and when to just make sure he knows you’re there and ready to help whenever he needs it. You know to listen for that tone in his voice that means _I’m not okay but I want to be so badly and I’m trying to fool myself into thinking I am but I just might shake apart at the seams._ You know when you ask what’s going on and he says _nothing_ in that particular way, with that specific tilt of his head and shoulders that you don’t even think he knows he does that it’s time to take him to the side, to the silence of a back room or an empty corner of the bus and do whatever it takes to pull it out of him. You know when it’s time for you to yank the covers back, to throw open the shades and play tug of war with him, to listen to him scream and rant that he doesn’t want you. It’s like you’re tuned to the sub-harmonies of him now, you hear the bassline under the wall of guitars when he says _it’s_ _fine it’s nothing leave me alone (please don’t) I don’t fucking want to talk asshole (don’t leave me alone) God you’re so annoying sometimes you know that (I need you so bad) you’re not my mom I don’t need you to fucking coddle me (see me, don’t let me become invisible) nothing’s wrong I swear to God._ He just nods and keeps poking, prodding at it like a bruise that only gets better the more you press on it.

 

But oh God, he’s strong. You stay because you’re not holding him up, he isn’t leeching your strength like he cries sometimes. He isn’t a vine climbing on your support to reach for the sun, he’s a sapling that just needs one of those guards wrapped around the base to keep the deer from stripping it away before it can grow bark thick enough to be impenetrable. You’re just the riverbank for his endless rushing flow of beauty and strength, you’re just the one that pushes him back when he pushes to see if anyone cares. Because the _real_ Pete Wentz is the strongest, bravest, most _whole_ person you’ve ever met. You see it every time he pulls himself out of the clutches of depression, every time he drops his shoulders and takes the first deep breath that will pull him out of the panic attack. You see it in the way he writes words so searingly honest because he can’t stand the thought of the kids like him thinking they’re alone, he wants them to know at least _one_ other person in the world knows what they’re going through.

 

So no. Pete Wentz has bipolar, but it’s not who he is. Pete Wentz suffers from anxiety attacks, but they don’t own him. Pete Wentz has depression, but he isn’t broken, he isn’t weak, he isn’t flawed.

 

He’s the sum of all his parts, each indescribable thing that makes him into the totality that is _him..._ and he’s _perfect._

  
  


 

 

~Patrick~

 

The funny thing about Patrick? He’s all politeness until he’s screaming, he’s shyness until he’s swinging his fists, he’s silence until he’s out there singing. He’s a ridiculous dichotomy of not knowing how fucking amazing he is and knowing but being afraid of it all at once. It’s kinda the stupidest thing in the world, but fuck you love him for it.

 

You wonder sometimes if he knows how much you’re the same. That for all the times he holds you up, you hold him up just as many in tiny ways he probably doesn’t even realize. That obliviousness is something that both infuriates you and makes you fall in love all over again. He’s a beautiful mess of perfection that is terrified of being laughed at, of being told he isn’t enough or that his best falls short. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t strong--God, he’s one of the strongest people you know. Because while he may be _terrified_ to sing, to share those melodies that hold his brain in a stranglehold, to step out into the lights and be _seen_ ...he still does it. Oh he might hang back, might shove you forward and beg you silently to _say something_ so he doesn’t have to...but he still goes. He still lifts his chin and dares the world to tell him he’s a failure even though his brain is already screaming at him.

 

But the best thing in the world? When he _get it_ . Oh, it’s only for a few moments, a day at most that he _finally_ realizes that people actually _like_ his music, that he really _is_ as talented, as beautiful, as likable as you tell him on a near-constant basis...but it’s _worth it_ . He’s surprised every time a song skyrockets to #1, every time the fans scream when he walks on stage, every time they’re called on stage for an award. But someday, you promise yourself, someday he’s going to _believe_ it. Even if you have to spend every day of your life telling him, showering him with adoring looks and catcalls that make him blush and punch you but his eyes still light up with the novelty of it. Pulling him along to the stage door, squeezing his hand just before you go on and giving him the smile that means _you can do it, you’ve got this, you’re good enough, I promise._ Someday, you know, someday he’ll get it.

 

You’re self aware to laugh at the difference between the two of you. Your problem is you _believe_ the hype too much, you hear them say you’re perfect and you know you’re not...so down you tumble into a spiral of darkness. He hears the voice inside him say he’s a failure and he just nods, shrinking down as he agrees, refusing to hear the thousands of voices that say he’s anything but. Maybe you’re just sides of the same coin, really...yin and yang? Something like that?

 

The amazing thing about spending your life with this tiny, pale tornado of brilliance is he really doesn’t need that much. It’s nothing like the lengths he goes to for you, the way he pulls you from the icy, burning darkness like a liferaft. Patrick Stump just needs someone to believe in him, he just needs to catch your eye from across the room and see you smile at him a silent _you got this!_ And he’s off. He’s diving in like a rescue swimmer plunging into the very thing that’s trying to kill him, he’s smiles and nods and he’s _amazing_ . He just needs someone to have _faith_ where he has none, to fill the self-esteemed shape hole in his chest and whisper in his ear _no, you REALLY can do it._ That’s what you are for him--you’re his catalyst. A hydrogen bomb has _everything_ it needs to explode like a supernova inside it, it’s destruction laying dormant but it’s _all there already_ . All it needs is that tiny kick, that infinitesimal _push_ and it’s off, roaring and expanding forever. That’s what you do for him--he’s brilliance and beauty and perfection just _waiting_ to be released and you just give him the spark he needs.

 

Nothing about Patrick is _showy_ , is _flamboyant_ , is _excessive_ . Oh, he dresses with flair, he likes bright colors and he bounces around on the stage as he sings his heart out. But his eyes always flick back to you, he leans into you when you lean into him and press your lips to his neck. He crashes into you like a wave after every show, exultant and grinning madly in shock that they _liked it_ . He can’t believe the kids were singing the words back at him, humming _his_ melodies as they left back to their high schools and jobs and dorm rooms, and you just smile and celebrate with him because he _deserves it_.

 

The thing you love so incredibly about him is how _hard_ he tries, that he never gives up. You can see his fear and his awkwardness in every line of his body as you sit on the hard plastic chairs during an interview--his foot kicked up over his knee, his bottom lip bitten between his teeth, his hands tapping an awkward rhythm on his thigh. His laugh that is high and trails off when the interviewer says something funny, and you know it’s forced because you know what his _real_ laugh sounds like, the way he slaps his knee like an old man in genuine humor when he’s tickled by something. You know it’s a jerk move, but you love the times that interviewers ask something about the melody, about the rhythm or tones in a song and he just _can’t_ _help himself_ , he _has_ to answer because they’re asking about _music_. His eyes light up and he rambles a blue streak, hands waving even though you know they’re sweaty and trembling; when he stops for breath, he always looks a little flabbergasted that he said that much and shocked that they actually _listened._ You want to burst with pride in those moments, you want to throw confetti in the air and applaud him for showing the world the amazingness that is _Patrick Stump_

 

Oh yes, he’s a shit sometimes. He punches you when you try to pull his headphones from his head when he’s deep into a track and trying to bend the notes to his formidable will. He’ll argue and argue and _argue_ with you and Joe and even Andy in the studio because _it needs to sound right_ and most times _right_ means _his way_ . But the thing is, you don’t really hate him for it because most times? He really _is_ right...or at least the process of fighting it out between the four of you _makes_ it perfect...and oh perfection created by Patrick Stump is something to behold. It’s the times that he doesn’t have the band to argue with, he doesn’t have anything but the tune in his head and all the plug-ins in the world that he doubts. That you find him at ass o’clock nearly in tears because it _won’t turn out right_ and you thank all the gods that you only need three hours of sleep a night and you help him. You let him argue, you let him tell you all the reasons it should be this way or that way, you’re obstinate just to give him a sharp foil to crash against. By the time dawn is creeping through the curtains it will be done, or nearly so...enough that he can let go of his laptop and let his skin settle back around him like a cloak because it’s _out_ , the song is _finally_ out of his head and safe on their private soundcloud. He’ll let you pull him to bed, exhausted and damp with anxious perspiration, wrung out and battle-weary as he collapses next to you. You curl around him, wrap your arms around a body that’s made of the most delicious curves in the world and he covers your hands with his own, pulls you in tighter as he whispers _thanks_. Smiling, you just nod into his neck and listen to his pulse, to his breathing as he drifts to sleep...his body is constantly making rhythms and you want to listen to them forever.

 

Patrick is like a hedgehog, you think. He’s prickly when he thinks someone might see his tender parts--he hides behind baggy hoodies and crossed arms because he thinks he isn’t perfect. He curls up into himself and glares at anyone who tries to come near, hoarding his music tightly to his chest even as he trembles to be told he isn’t just a giant fraud. He’s the strongest person you know, because he never gives up, he doesn’t abandon the songs to go sell records in a dark little store in the depths of Evanston. He doesn’t leave the bar entirely because that would be giving up and Patrick _doesn’t give up_ \--instead he just stands against the wall and tries to hide in his hoodie, gripping his water like it can protect him. He’ll argue with anyone that Elvis Costello was an unmitigated genius and he wears his John Coltrane tee that _nobody_ ever says is cool because _he_ likes it goddammit. But the light that flares in his eyes like a streaking comet when you tell him he looks amazing, that you want him to dance with you...that’s the thing that makes life worth living.

 

You want to spend every day of the rest of your life putting that light there, because every hero needs a sidekick, right? Batman needed Robin, Han Solo needed Chewie, Radioactive Man needed Fall Out Boy, Frodo needs Samwise...You’re his sidekick, the one who helps him put on his mask before he saves the city, the one that shoots Stormtroopers while he wires the door open. He’s the bravest hero in the land, the champion, the last real of the real ones, and you just want to watch the sun bathe him in all the glory he deserves.

**Author's Note:**

> So...this came about two ways. The catalyst was watching the Chester Bennington Celebration and having an almost-constant stream of Linkin Park on lately. If their music isn't your cup of tea, no worries...but it just struck me how incredible a single life is. Nearly twenty artists came together to pay tribute and lend their voices to fill the silence his death caused and it just blew me away thinking here are all these people who--in aggregate--are a single stand-in for Chester. I don't say that to in any way diminish their talent, but to put light on how inestimably precious a single life is. 
> 
> That was the kickstarter that really just made me ponder some things in my own life. I adopted my sister a year ago, and she struggles with some pretty serious Mental Health issues--PTSD, Anxiety, depression. She's the strongest, most amazing person I know, but she's been having a really hard time lately, and I struggle every day to find the *right* way to help her, because sometimes she needs to be left alone, sometimes she needs to be pushed out of bed and out into the day, sometimes she needs a hug...and finding what she needs in that exact moment is one of the hardest things I've ever done, but God if it isn't the best thing I've ever done too. 
> 
> So this story comes from the blend of those two things, and my unending hatred for the taboo thing Mental Health is in our world. It should never be a guilty secret, it should be a badge of honor, a source of pride that you've overcome something so massive. Anyways, thank you for reading, I'm over on tumblr as a-smile-like-that if you'd ever want to chat!


End file.
